Emotional Arousal and Group Context Socially Tune Perceptions of Efficacy and Interpersonal Neural Synchrony during Collective Rituals

Religious believers in group and individual settings rated the perceived efficacy of spirit-medium rituals. Arousal predicted increased ratings of efficacy, marked by suppressed alpha and beta power. Individual setting increased within-participant PLV in alpha and beta bands, while group setting enhanced between-participant theta PLV and socially-tuned perceptions of ritual efficacy.